“No Commencement in the Commonwealth” – A Look at How Massachusetts Higher Education is Underserving its Latino Students

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In the midst of college graduation season, Education Reform Now – a progressive think tank and advocacy organization – today released a new report, “No Commencement in the Commonwealth: How Massachusetts’ Higher Education System Undermines Economic Mobility for Latinos and Others – And What We Can Do About It” (available here) that analyzes public higher education in the Bay State and reveals that the Latino graduation gap ranks 37th in the country.

Among other findings that show how students of color experience disparate rates of college access and success in Massachusetts, the key finding of a very wide gap between White and Latino students is particularly striking given that the graduation gap between White and Black students in the Bay State is the 3rd best in the country. It’s further surprising considering that Latino students in the Bay State have higher K-12 achievement levels than Black students in Massachusetts and higher K-12 achievement levels than Latino students nationally.